Reflection on John 21

If I wait by this shore, I know you’ll come;
I can hear your whispers echo from the opposite coast
and weep to hold you again in our embrace.
I walked too long to make it to this place.

I broke my toes on rocky mountains
and sprained my ankles in valleys deep;
I dried my mouth of saliva in deserts hot,
and risked sinking swamps in certain spots.

I laughed with a drunk sailor in a tiny pub
and sat with an old monk in an old city in a new store;
I dreamed with a homeless beggar on a busy street
and sat alone in a crowd in the blistering heat.

I was forgotten in solitude in a lonely garden on a dark night
and begged to be free of your suffering and your pain;
I screamed at the sky that it would, for me, be no more.
And then remembered you fishing right off of this very shore.